


The Children of the War

by justbreathe80



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-13
Updated: 2009-07-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 10:45:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbreathe80/pseuds/justbreathe80
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Can you -" Rodney started, then took a deep breath and started over, "can you tell me about Atlantis?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Children of the War

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for leupagus for livelongnmarry. She asked for an AU where Jeannie's the one who went to Atlantis, and Rodney the one with the kid. I hope you enjoy this! And, if, when you're done, you are wondering, I'm definitely thinking of sequels already.
> 
> Title from the Dar Williams song _After All_, which is one of my favorites, and has a line (different from the title) that made me think of how Rodney would look at Atlantis.
> 
> Many thanks to riverlight for the readthrough, and to unamaga, who pushed me to make this MORE and I hope I managed it.

"I just need another minute - damn - almost there." Only the ends of her blond ponytail were visible under the console. John leaned closer to try to get a better look; hovering and putting on the pressure always seemed to make her work faster.

"We don't really have another minute, Jeannie," he said, his voice tight, the radio in his ear full of noise from the Marines who were about a mile behind them and fast approaching, yelling and firing shots as they ran.

Jeannie huffed irritably and turned her head, her hands still busy. "You know, John, I appreciate that you think that you're motivating me, but I really am working as fast as I can." She rubbed the back of one hand across her sweaty forehead and gave John the same look she always did in these situations - the one that said, "Please go away now."

He stood there, watching Jeannie and listening to his radio, and when he thought he could almost hear the running footsteps off of the radio, Jeannie shouted, "Yes!" and stood up quickly, almost hitting her head on the console. "Dial it!"

John lunged quickly and punched in the gate address for the alpha site, symbols still not as deeply embedded as Atlantis' address, which he knew as well as he knew the letters of his own name, but familiar nonetheless. The gate whooshed to life and John told the Marines, "Don't slow down." He and Jeannie walked through the gate, and fifteen marines ran through after them, out onto the meadow next to the gate on the alpha site. The gate shut down before anything or anyone else could get through.

They all stood there, panting, the marines dirty and bloody - a couple of them had taken hits, but didn't look too bad - and Jeannie's face said everything that John was thinking.

"This is the fifth time," he said quietly, after dialing Atlantis and sending the marines through ahead of them. The fifth time they'd needed to get through the gate fast and the DHD had failed to dial the alpha site, Atlantis, or any other address they'd tried. Five missions and five times Jeannie had only gotten the DHD to work through sheer luck and random yanking of crystals.

They'd lost six marines since it started.

When they weren't off-world, Jeannie had been in the lab constantly, huddled with Zelenka and a few others, scrawling equations across a room full of white boards, but he had known Jeannie for the years they'd worked side-by-side on Atlantis, and he knew her well enough to know that she had _nothing_. The dark circles under her eyes, the tightness in her mouth, and the way she had started snapping at people left and right was proof enough.

Jeannie looked at John, stricken, her knees covered in mud from kneeling on the ground to fix the DHD, and her hair fallen around her face. "Yeah, I know."

"Any thoughts?" he said, and Jeannie sighed heavily and pushed her hair back.

"Oh yeah, I've got a thought. I'm just not looking forward to it."

"Why?

"I think I have to get in touch with my brother."

*****

"Um, you have a brother?" John said dumbly as he stumbled into the gateroom on Atlantis, trying to wrap his head around the idea of another McKay kicking around out there somewhere. Jeannie was brilliant, and saved their asses almost every single day; he couldn't imagine what her brother was like if she thought he could help _her_ when she was stuck.

"Yeah. We, um - well, let's just say that we're pretty different in a lot of ways. Meredith – I mean, Rodney, he hates when anyone calls him that - is brilliant, really - so smart - and he started his PhD in astrophysics while I was still in undergrad. We always had a lot in common up to that point, but then he met Katie and got married and they had Carrie, and when Katie got into the accident, Rodney dropped out. And never went back."

"Okay," John said, still a little stunned. He had worked alongside Jeannie for four years, and they'd become good friends over that time. Or at least he thought they were close, although she’d never even mentioned that she had a brother (or a brother named Meredith, for that matter). She was smart and funny and had a sarcastic streak that stung like a whip when she forgot to rein it in and she reminded him of everything he'd always wanted in a woman, when he was still looking for one.

Jeannie looked at him sharply, like she expected better, or more, from him, then sighed. "I just know that he can help me. Before he left school, he was doing research into wormhole physics, years ahead of anyone outside of the Stargate program, and he's got a master's in mechanical engineering...if he hadn't stopped, he would be here instead of me. I'm sure of it."

John stood there, head cocked to one side, considering. Sooner or later, this problem with the DHDs was going to make them have to stop going off-world altogether, because they couldn't keep getting stuck on planets with hostile people who shot at them and no way to get home. It was worth sending Jeannie to get Rodney and see if he could help, because Jeannie was making herself, and the rest of the science staff, sick over it.

"Then let's go talk to Sam about it, see if we can't ask Rodney to help."

Jeannie smiled slowly and brushed her hands purposefully across the drying mud on her pants. She looked a little freaked out, but nodded and said, "Yeah, okay."

*****

Normally, only emergencies warranted establishing a wormhole to Earth, but Sam, John, and Jeannie had decided that a slew of non-functioning DHDs and the potential for the whole expedition to be grounded permanently qualified, and so Jeannie and John gated out the next morning. John didn't really have a great excuse for leaving and going to Canada, and Sam had raised her eyebrows when John spun some story about needing to check in with Landry and the importance of keeping connections with Earth. He'd almost punctured Jeannie's leg with his toe when she couldn't hold back a snort.

"I do have business to take care of on Earth!" he protested as they left the conference room, and Jeannie snickered.

"Whatever. I know you just want to meet my brother."

He didn't have an answer for that, so he just scowled at her back as Jeannie laughed and trailed off to the lab. He couldn't help but wonder about Meredith Rodney McKay, single father, a genius snuffed out ahead of his time, who was smart enough that _Jeannie_ needed his help for something. And it wasn't like John was busy with off-world missions at the moment or anything.

They went through the gate, then directly from the SGC to the Odyssey, which beamed them down in a hotel room booked by the SGC in Vancouver, and took a cab out to Rodney's.

"Rodney lives in Burnaby - he teaches physics at a high school there and Carrie is in tenth grade," Jeannie said, as close to babbling as she ever got, her hands clenched against the leather seat. "He used to teach at a community college when she was little, so he could be home with her - we grew up in Vancouver, did I tell you that? We both went to college in the States, but -"

John cut her off, putting his hand over hers on the seat for a second. Her hand was cool and sweaty, and, god, was she _shaking_? "Are you okay?" he said, trying to get her to make eye contact. "When was the last time you saw him?"

"Um," Jeannie said, ducking her head. "Well, technically, it was seven years ago, but I try to call when I'm on Earth! I send cards! For his birthday and Carrie's and Christmas, and I _have_ been out of the galaxy for the last four years of that."

"So, let me get this straight," he said, slowly, "we're going to ask your brother, who is a high school teacher and has a tenth grader and hasn't heard from you in seven years to come to another galaxy to help us fix a technical problem?"

Jeannie picked her head up and stared at him, eyes wide and stubborn. "Um, yeah? I mean, yes. Yes, we are." She paused, and glared at him. "And when was the last time you talked to _your_ brother, huh?"

John stuck his tongue out at her, and crossed his arms over his chest, watching the pine trees and suburban streets rush past outside of the cab window, a blur of grey and green.

*****

It took John a few minutes to get Jeannie to knock on Rodney's front door. Rodney's house was small but well-kept, on an evergreen tree-lined suburban street. Jeannie kept raising her hand to knock and then dropping it; John was in the middle of hissing, "Come on, we did travel light years to get here - " when the door swung open.

"Were you planning on loitering outside my front door all day, or - oh."

There was no mistake that the guy standing on the other side of the door frame was Jeannie's brother - they had the same mouth and eyes and their bodies vibrated with the same pent-up mental and physical energy. Rodney's hair was short, dark, and thinning, and he looked older around his eyes, but they were brother and sister all right. And Rodney was standing there, his mouth gaping open as he stared at Jeannie.

“What on earth are you doing here?” Rodney blurted, looking shocked, hand still gripping the door knob.

“Nice to see you too,” Jeannie shot back, and then winced.

Rodney was getting with the program pretty quickly, the look on his face shifting from shock to a mixture of anger and irritation. He shot a look sharp enough to cut glass in Jeannie’s direction. “Yes, of course. Oh, hey, I think your niece – who you haven’t seen in seven years, by the way – is around here somewhere.”

“Listen, I know –“ Jeannie started, then took a deep breath. “I know I haven’t been the greatest sister or aunt for a long time, and I’m not trying to make excuses –“

“Oh really,” Rodney said, arms crossed over his chest now.

“There is a really good reason for why I haven’t been around, okay? That’s part of why we’re here.” She gestured at John, and he took a step forward and extended his hand, even though he was happy to let them duke it out alone.

“Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. Good to meet you.”

Rodney took his hand, and shook it firmly while looking back and forth between John and Jeannie, sizing them up before dropping John’s hand. “You brought your boyfriend? How cute.”

"Oh, wait, no -" John said, before he could even catch his brain up. Jeannie was laughing, not even trying to hold back. John grumbled, "Not that it's _that_ funny."

“Well,” Rodney said, sighing, “you might as well come in.” He pointed at Jeannie. “I’m still mad, though.”

Rodney led them inside, through a small living room and dining room and waved at them to sit down at the small kitchen table in the sparse kitchen. Jeannie sat down closest to Rodney and leaned forward. "Mer, John’s a colleague. You know that I've been working for the USAF for a while now, in a couple of classified programs."

"Hmph," Rodney said around a sip of his coffee, his eyes sharp and blue, hands clutched white-knuckled around the coffee mug. He didn't sound like he was buying it. Rodney didn't say anything else, and John finally had to hiss at Jeannie to get her to start telling him what they were there for.

Jeannie cleared her throat and tucked her hair behind her ears. "Here's the thing, Mer - I know it's lousy for me to drop in like this, and I know that I've been a crappy sister and aunt for a long time, but I need your help with something. Something big."

"Okay," Rodney said, drawing the word out, setting the mug back down on the dark wood surface of the table.

"And, well," Jeannie continued, her hands coming up to rest on top of the table, "like I said, it's classified, so you would need to sign a confidentiality agreement before I can tell you..."

At that moment, a streak of red came flying into the kitchen. Rodney reached a hand out and grasped the arm of a teenage girl, with Rodney and Jeannie's slanted mouth and blue eyes, and bright red hair pulled back into a ponytail. "Hey, where's the fire?" Rodney said, letting go of the arm he was holding. The girl looked at them both with the same gaze that John had thought only had one permutation; he now realized came in multiple forms and he was seriously outnumbered. "I didn't raise you in a barn. Say hi to your aunt, and her...friend." Rodney's voice was dripping with disdain.

John barely had a moment to be offended before the girl, who he now assumed was the aforementioned Carrie, turned on Jeannie and her face lit up. "Aunt Jeannie!" she exclaimed, and he caught a glimpse of Jeannie on her feet, smiling and tearful, before Carrie was on her, hugging her and laughing. "No way! I thought you were out of the country or something!"

"No, no - I mean, well, yes - never mind, look at you. You're a little adult!" Jeannie said, arms wrapped around Carrie's thin shoulders. "It's so good to see you." Watching them, it was hard to believe that Jeannie never mentioned them - Rodney and Carrie - because Jeannie was grinning and _crying_ and holding onto Carrie the way he'd only ever seen her carry a new, fully-charged ZPM back on Atlantis. She looked so happy, and something that had been lingering around her eyes every day he'd known her was gone - the weight of not having this, them.

"It's good to see you too, Aunt Jeannie," Carrie said, laughing and backing out of the hug. John glanced over at Rodney, who was watching in a way that would have looked indifferent if he hadn't still been clutching his coffee mug so tightly. Then, suddenly, Carrie turned on John. "Who are you?"

John stood up, faster than he had since BOT, and stuck out his hand, which Carrie took and shook firmly. "I'm John. John Sheppard. A friend of Jeannie's." Carrie sized him up the same way Rodney had a few moments ago, then let go. "_Just_ a friend," he clarified.

"Cool," Carrie said casually, turning and walking away to grab a package of cookies out of one of the kitchen cabinets. She leaned back against the counter, legs encased in jeans crossed at the ankle, cookie crumbs collecting on her blue t-shirt. John didn't think it was possible to have a more awkward moment than it had been sitting and waiting for Jeannie to talk before, but this beat that hands down.

Finally, Rodney sighed. "You want to take the car out?" he said, his eyes wary even as he reached into his pocket and fished out a set of keys, which he dangled like a carrot on a stick. Carrie sprung forward, crumbs flying, hand outstretched until it wrapped around the clinking metal.

"Really?" she said, clutching the keys in triumph. "Are you serious?"

Jeannie looked alarmed. "Don't you need to be supervised by an adult to drive at your age?" Carrie shot her a look that made John recoil too, and Rodney rolled his eyes.

"Relax, Jeannie, she's sixteen and got her driver's license six weeks ago. Not that you've seen her since she was nine." He turned his attention back to Carrie and grabbed her hand, his face serious; Carrie didn't look away. "Don't make me regret trusting you, okay, Caroline? Driving is a big responsibility and you need to be very, very careful. I don't want to pick you up from the hospital, or not have you come home at all. Got it?"

Carrie nodded emphatically, very serious too, and leaned down to hug Rodney. John couldn't look away from the expression on Rodney's face as he brought his arm up around Carrie's back, which was still a little wary, but also bewildered, like he didn't expect that kind of affection. Like he was being given a gift he still didn't quite know how to accept. "Thanks, Dad. I'm just going to go down to the library, okay?"

"Okay," Rodney said, letting Carrie go what looked like reluctance. "Be home by dinner."

Carrie called back a, "Love you!" as she darted out the front door, and Rodney sat still while the sound of the car starting, then backing out of the driveway, came in through the cracked kitchen window.

"Mer -" Jeannie started, reaching out a hand toward him, her eyes still wet. Rodney held a hand up in front of him, and Jeannie recoiled.

"Just tell me what you came to tell me," he said flatly, and John was more than a little confused.

Jeannie reached down and pulled the confidentiality agreement out of her bag, and Rodney leaned forward to take it and the pen John offered, and signed his name.

*****

Jeannie told Rodney almost everything, starting all the way back in the beginning with the Stargate program and then Atlantis and, finally, why she needed his help. Rodney got up at least three or four times to fill his coffee cup while she was talking, and he was vibrating with caffeine-induced energy by the time Jeannie stopped, took a deep breath, and leaned back in her chair.

"So, let me get this straight," Rodney said, clasping his hands together and leaning forward. "You have been living in another galaxy for four years, and you're having problems with your device that dials this stargate and you want me to come and help you fix them?"

Jeannie sighed. "That's a grossly oversimplified version, but yes, that's basically it."

"You want a high school physics teacher to come and fix your interplanetary - oh, sorry, _intergalactic_ \- wormhole device?"

"Yes," Jeannie said, nodding. "I know you can, Rodney, I remember the work you were doing at MIT. This whole project is your theory spun out into reality, every day, and I know that you can help us with your engineering skills and your background. You're brilliant."

"Well, yes, of course I am," Rodney said, straightening up in his seat. "But you're leaving out the critical part of all of this. I have a house in the suburbs, a job I have to be at tomorrow at 7:30am, and a sixteen-year-old _daughter_. I can't go to another goddamn _galaxy_. I haven't gone anywhere in a long time."

"I know," Jeannie said urgently, leaning forward, "it would only be a few days, maybe a week tops, with any luck."

"I don't have a week!" Rodney said sharply, standing up and smoothing out his green button-down shirt over the waistband of his jeans. "I have a life here, Jeannie! While you were out exploring the goddamn galaxy, I was here raising a kid by myself and trying to patch together the rest of my life. I left theoretical wormhole physics behind a half a lifetime ago. I've moved on."

John had stayed mostly quiet the whole time Jeannie talked, adding only when it seemed appropriate. He felt like he was intruding on something here between the two of them that ran so deep by now that he wasn't sure how they would make it back across to one another. But he knew that he trusted Jeannie, and he knew that they - Atlantis - needed this.

"Rodney, I don't claim to know how complicated this is for you," he said, as gently as he could, staring down Rodney's accusing glare, "but we could really use your help, and we'll do our best to help you figure out how to make it work. Jeannie has been working for weeks on fixing this herself, and, sorry to say, she's not getting anywhere. She thinks you can help. Please."

Rodney stood there, hands shoved into his pockets. He reached down to drain the last dregs of hour-old coffee from the mug. "I have to think," he said shortly, and walked out of the room.

*****

After a dinner later on that was awkward even by the day's standards, with Carrie looking searchingly back and forth between Rodney, Jeannie, and John, trying to piece together the puzzle of her dad and her aunt and this random guy who wasn't Jeannie's boyfriend, Rodney showed Jeannie upstairs to the guest room and then handed John a blanket and couple of pillows and gestured at the couch. "Sorry," Rodney said, "but since you're apparently not Jeannie's boyfriend, we're out of guest rooms."

"Thanks," John said, taking the stack of bedding and setting it on the couch cushion. Rodney's light brown hair was sticking up; he'd been running his hands through it all night, and he looked exhausted. "It's not a big deal - I've had way worse."

Rodney nodded. "Oh, well, good then. See you in the morning." He caught John's eye, and John knew that it was borderline weird, standing there in Rodney McKay's living room, staring at each other for no good reason. Still, he couldn't look away, his eyes caught on the deeper lines around Rodney's eyes, so different from Jeannie's in that way, and the way he hunched just a little into himself where Jeannie always stood straight up, no matter what. Finally, Rodney cleared his throat and held up his hand in a sheepish mockery of a wave, then shuffled up the stairs.

*****

John lay on the couch in the dark, the glow of the streetlight outside of the living room window almost alien after four years of the moons and soft lights of Atlantis at night. He felt like he'd lost his bearings a little bit and was almost regretting his decision to tag along, because he was becoming more and more convinced that he was complicating even further what was already a really complicated situation for Jeannie. Rodney had swayed back and forth between sarcasm, bravado, and hurt all night, so much so that John felt dizzy. When Carrie had come home, dropped the keys on the side table in the front hall, and said hi to Rodney, John saw him visibly relax, uncoil. There was so much there that John didn't know; Jeannie was tense all throughout dinner and Carrie was picking up on it too.

He should have stayed on Atlantis.

To top it all off, he couldn't sleep for shit. He hadn't spent more than a handful of nights on Earth in years, and the sounds and the feel and everything was different enough to keep him staring up at the ceiling for hours. He had just started calculating drag on the wings of an F-16 (his own personal version of counting sheep) when a light came on, and he heard someone walking down the stairs.

"Hey," John said, almost a whisper, mostly just so that whoever it was knew he was awake.

"Oh, hi," Rodney said, standing at the end of the couch. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. I just needed some water."

"No, it's fine. Just having a hard time getting to sleep, that's all."

Rodney sighed and sat down on the chair opposite John. "Yeah, me too." John could make out Rodney's fuzzy outline in the dark - his night vision wasn't what it used to be - and he stared until his eyes finally adjusted and he could make out Rodney's red West High Physics Club t-shirt and plaid flannel pants and his hair lopsided from the press of his pillow. He looked like Jeannie did when she was on the opposite end of a week straight in the labs, trying desperately to fix a city that rebelled against them, its unchosen ones, almost daily, rung out and in dire need of a day to just sleep, or a drink, or both. "So, Colonel Sheppard -"

"John," John said, his voice a little hoarse, pushing himself up to rest his back against the arm of the couch.

"Okay," Rodney said slowly, "John. Are you sure you're not Jeannie's boyfriend?"

"Oh god, no, no, no way," John said, shaking his head for emphasis.

Rodney snorted and leaned forward to stare intently at John, resting his elbows against his knees, a slight, sardonic smile on his face. "What, do you have something against attractive and brilliant women?"

"Just the woman part," John blurted, and he wanted to slap his hand against his mouth, because did he really just say that out loud? Christ. He swallowed down a wave of panic in his chest, and then figured that he might as well go all the way at this point. "The other parts work just fine for me."

Rodney backed up a little, shifting his hands from his thighs to the seat next to his legs, like he wasn't sure what to do with them. "Well, that explains it then."

John laughed softly. "Yeah. I guess so."

Rodney watched John for a moment, and John couldn't remember the last time he'd been around someone who made him feel so pinned and splayed out, like a butterfly on the poster board for his fifth grade science project. Then Rodney leaned forward again, stretching his hands out in front of him onto the coffee table. John could reach out and close the distance, put his hands onto Rodney's broad, strong ones, and he felt his own hands twitch at the thought. "Can you -" Rodney started, then took a deep breath and started over, "can you tell me about Atlantis?"

It was the easiest question anyone could ask him, although he found it hard to find the precise language to describe the planes of Atlantis' spires, the way the city rose up out of the ocean and the way the waves lapped against the long piers like fingers against the slate blue water. It was even harder to describe the incredible technology, and he tried to capture the way it felt, under his skin, when the city responded to him, lit up in welcome every time he came home. He wasn't always comfortable with what Ancient technology did in his presence, but the way it felt was both thrilling and terrifying every single time. He told Rodney about the puddle jumpers, how it felt to fly something with your _mind_ after making do with inadequate hands for so many years, and how he still had a moment of awe every time he went through the gate, just for the insane opportunity he had to be some kind of science fiction hero. He talked until his throat started to hurt and his voice went hoarse, and when he stopped, breathing hard, he realized that he was clutching Rodney's hand tightly, and Rodney looked like he was going to cry.

"Sorry," John said, taking his hands off of Rodney's. "I didn't mean -"

"No," Rodney said, cutting him off and leaning back with a deep breath and a shudder. "It sounds incredible. I mean, theoretically, I knew that all of this was possible - wormholes and interplanetary travel and all of that. But knowing that it actually exists - that my little sister has been living this every day for years - it's just -"

"Yeah," John said, smiling, "it's still like that for me too." He paused, then said, "We really need you, Rodney. Things are pretty bad over there."

Rodney just sat there, leaning back and looking at John, and John could almost hear him thinking, turning around all of the possibilities and contingencies and logistics around in his head. John had just settled back down, his head against the pillow, when Rodney said, barely more than a whisper, "Could I be back in time for class next Monday morning?"

*****

John woke up to the sun streaming in the living room window and the sound of someone shuffling around in the kitchen. A quick look at his watch told him that it was 6:30, and he pushed off the blankets and swung his legs down to the floor, shifting a little to stretch his stiff back. Atlantis beds sucked, but he was convinced that no one over the age of thirty could sleep on a couch and not pay for it the next day.

When he shuffled into the kitchen, Rodney and Jeannie were huddled together at the table, talking quietly. Jeannie's hand rested against Rodney's forearm, and it said something that Rodney wasn't backing away. In front of them was a notebook, and John could see what looked like equations scratched across the surface in Jeannie's sprawling hand, as well as a few others in a more cramped and unfamiliar script that must have been Rodney's. John tried to make a little noise as he moved closer, and both Rodney and Jeannie looked up. Jeannie smiled at him, the way she always did, lighting up her whole face, while Rodney's smile was a little more tentative, the corners of his mouth just turning up.

"Good morning," John said, slouching back against the counter. Rodney looked at him for a minute, then ducked his head a little.

"Mugs are in the cabinet over your head," Rodney said, slipping out of Jeannie's grasp. "I should probably go get dressed for work." Rodney fled the room quickly, and John really hoped that it didn't have anything to do with last night.

"Hey," Jeannie said as John sat down in the seat Rodney had vacated. "How'd you sleep?"

"Okay, you?"

"Took me a while to fall asleep. It sounds weird here, you know?" Jeannie said.

"Yeah, I know what you're saying," John answered. "So, did you guys talk?"

Jeannie brightened a bit. "Yeah, we did. I woke up at 4:30 because I'm all screwed up with the gate lag and the time change and everything, and Rodney came down at five, and we talked. About a lot of things."

"And started working the math, huh?" John said, grinning and gesturing at the notebook. He looked at it and tried to follow, but following Jeannie's math was a challenge on a full night's sleep, let alone just a few hours.

"Yeah," Jeannie said, sounding more excited than he'd heard her in weeks, "and I think we might already be onto something..."

John nodded as Jeannie talked through it, only half-listening as he sipped his coffee and listened to the sounds of Rodney getting ready drifting down the stairs. A few minutes later, he heard Rodney yell, "Caroline, I'm leaving in five minutes. If you're not down here by then I'm letting you walk to school in the rain." John smiled as he heard Carrie squawk and a door slam, and then the sound of Rodney's footsteps on the stairs.

Both Rodney and Carrie breezed into the kitchen, Rodney first, wearing a pair of soft-looking, brown corduroys and an untucked blue button down shirt (variation on last night's theme, he thought), and then Carrie, also in jeans and a t-shirt like the night before, pulling a black hooded sweatshirt down over her red hair. They both queued up at the coffee maker, and Rodney handed her a travel mug full, which she stuck her face in and inhaled deeply.

"Oh yeah," Carrie said, dreamily, then turned and smiled and Jeannie and John, like she'd just noticed they were there. "Morning."

Rodney finished pouring his own cup and shook his head. "I should probably pretend that I'm a better parent than I am when there are guests in the house and that I don't let my sixteen year old drink excessive amounts of coffee, huh?" He reached over and put his arm around Carrie's shoulders, tugging her in for a brief hug. She pretended to struggle, but she was laughing.

"Too late for that now, Dad," she said, then grabbed her backpack off the floor and walked toward the front door. "See you guys later. I'll be in the car."

"Take the keys," Rodney said, pushing them across the counter, and Carrie practically skipped the rest of the way out. "You'd think I would have instilled a healthy fear of cars by now through all of my paranoia..." he muttered as he popped the lid on his mug. "You going to be okay here alone today?" he said, taking a sip.

"Sure," Jeannie said, and John nodded in agreement. That seemed to placate Rodney enough, and he nodded and headed out the front door, looking back once, his eyes connecting with John's before he shut the door behind him.

*****

The day passed quickly. Jeannie attached herself to two different laptops running simulations while John cleaned up some mission reports, called in ("Yeah, he's thinking about it," he told Landry over the phone), and went out for a run on pavement, with the light rain coming down across his face. Rodney and Carrie came home at around four thirty, and John spent the next hour and a half losing three out of five games of chess to Carrie, while Rodney and Jeannie argued, talked shop, and made pizza.

"Ha! Checkmate!" Carrie said, grinning and reaching back to tuck her hair behind her ears. "You're pretty good," she conceded after John tried not to grumble while putting the chess set away. "You should play my dad - I've never beat him before. I'm starting to get close, but he's ruthless. Maybe you can play him some while you guys are gone."

"Wait, what?" Jeannie said, turning on Rodney abruptly. "While you're gone?"

Rodney looked sheepish, and a little flushed, and John couldn't help but grinning like an idiot, because Rodney was _coming with them_. "Yes, Carrie and I talked in the car on the way home today," he said, and John couldn't help but notice the tiny spot of sauce at the corner of Rodney's mouth as he talked. "She says I should go, and she also said that she was sure her friend Nicole's mom would let her stay over for the week and called to check, and I have ten weeks of vacation and six months of sick time stored up at work - I might as well take it."

"Dad said you needed help, Aunt Jeannie, and he could use a break anyway. I'll be fine, don't worry about me," Carrie said, hopping up out of her chair and taking down some plates out of the cabinet to set the table.

"I'm glad you don't need me around," Rodney said, faking a pout, but Carrie just smiled and shook her head.

"Dad, I'm _fine_. I'll miss you, and don't forget to come home or anything, but I can survive a week without you. Go help Aunt Jeannie, all right?"

Rodney paused, then nodded and ran his hand gently across the top of Carrie's head, smoothing her hair back. "Okay."

John could tell that Jeannie was trying not to whoop or anything else inappropriate, and John ducked out for a second to call into the SGC and arrange transport for them the next morning. Burnaby to the Odyssey. The Odyssey to the SGC, and then back to Atlantis. Back home.

*****

After dinner, Jeannie and Carrie did the dishes side by side, laughing and talking a mile a minute, while Rodney sat across the table from John and annihilated him at the first game of chess. John was too caught up in watching Rodney's fingers on the chess pieces, staring at him - his disheveled hair, his tomato sauce-stained blue shirt, the way he caught his lower lip between his teeth right before he made a decision - while he thought about every single move, and John wasn't paying enough attention to keep up. Carrie was right - Rodney was really good. John snapped out of it a little for game two, and managed to keep up with Rodney's strategy for a while, even though the outcome was the same.

Even though Rodney was still winning, John could tell that his ability to keep up was driving Rodney a little crazy, and he was making irritated noises and starting to make mistakes. Finally, on game four, as the water turned off behind John, he saw the opening he'd been looking for, and went for it. "Checkmate," he drawled, leaning back in the chair, smiling smugly and watching a look of horror spread over Rodney's face.

"Wow," Carrie said, laughing while she dried her hands off on a towel. "Way to go, John."

"You - I - hmph." Rodney sat there, staring at his king toppled over on the board, then looked up at John, a real smile starting up across his face. "Another?"

*****

The next morning, Saturday, after another shitty night's sleep on the couch, Rodney got Carrie packed up and off to Nicole's, but not before Carrie hugged Jeannie for a long time. "I won't stay away so long this time, okay?" Jeannie said, a little choked up, stroking her hand along Carrie's thin back.

"Okay," Carrie said, pulling away and then, to John's surprise, hugged him too. "Take care of my dad."

"Yeah, of course," he replied, meaning every word and letting himself hug her back.

"Let's go," Rodney said, probably meaning to sound sharper than he did, but instead coming out soft and bit tender, as he ushered Carrie and her duffle bag out the front door.

*****

"So we just stand here and get beamed up?"

"Yup, just like Star Trek," John said, and Jeannie walked over and put her arm across Rodney's shoulders.

"Don't worry - it's fine."

"I'm not worri -" but Rodney was cut off as they beamed aboard the Odyssey. Dematerializing and rematerializing was always a bit of a bizarre sensation, and Rodney looked like he was going to be sick, a little green around the gills.

"Wow," Rodney said, taking a deep breath. He opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but he stopped when he caught a glimpse of Earth out of the large picture windows at the front of the Odyssey. Colonel Shelton moved to radio the SGC in preparation to beam them down there, but John just held out his hand to stop him. He wanted to give Rodney his ten minutes of staring out of the window, out into the endless space and down at Earth. It was a fucking amazing view, Earth spread out below them, one that still made John's heart race every time he saw it. He remembered what it was like his own first time, remembered feeling like his whole world was expanding more rapidly than he could keep up with.

*****

If John thought Rodney looked a little worse for the wear after the beaming, that was nothing compared to gate travel. He had to practically drag Rodney through the gate at the SGC, his hand clamped around Rodney's elbow, and had to use the same hand to steady Rodney as they walked out into the Atlantis gate room and he almost stumbled. Jeannie was on his other side, her hand on Rodney's shoulder.

"I think I need to lie down," Rodney mumbled as John pulled him upright. "This is a lot of intergalactic travel for one person in a day."

Sam walked up to them and reached out her hand to Rodney, who shook it, albeit it a bit weakly. "Welcome to Atlantis, Rodney. We're happy to have you. John, maybe you can show him to the guest quarters?" John nodded at Sam and Jeannie, who looked a little worried, and gently led Rodney from the room. He wished he could skip the transporter, because Rodney wasn't doing so hot; he figured that another strange method of transportation was going to put Rodney over the edge, but he was also pretty sure he couldn't do the twenty minute walk either.

He got Rodney to his quarters without much incident. Rodney was still kind of stunned, taking in what was around him slowly, and John prodded him into the room and sat him down on the bed, putting his bag down next to Rodney's feet. "Here you go," he said, and Rodney peered up at him. "My quarters are just down the hall, if you need anything."

"Thanks," Rodney said gratefully, scrubbing his hands over his eyes, "Can you tell Jeannie to just give me a couple of hours, and to come get me when she needs me?"

"Yeah, I can do that," John answered, mentally dimming the lights, and Rodney was already curled up, looking smaller and more vulnerable than he'd ever seen a McKay. John turned his back and left the room, off to locate Ronon and Teyla and find out what had been going on while they were gone.

*****

John sat straight up in bed as his door chime went off, trying to give his eyes a second to adjust to the darkness before he jumped up and answered it, fumbling his radio into his ear as he crossed the room. When he waved his hand over the lock, the door slid open, and Rodney was standing there, wearing another t-shirt and plaid pants. John took a deep breath and relaxed, tugging his radio back out and holding it in his hand.

"Hey," John said, running his hand through his hair and leaning again the door frame. "Everything okay?"

Rodney nodded, and John moved to the side to let him in. Rodney stood in the middle of John's quarters, which suddenly felt too small, like the walls had moved inward. He couldn't remember the last time someone else had been in there - he always socialized with Teyla, Ronon, and Jeannie somewhere else, like one of the multipurpose rooms that seemed to be everywhere around the city. It felt like one extra person tipped the room over the edge of adequate into somewhat claustrophobic. Rodney's eyes finally settled on John's desk chair, and he moved forward to sit down. John had a million questions, like _what's wrong?_ and _why are you here instead of at Jeannie's?_ and _what happened to you?_, and he was about to say something, anything to break the silence, when Rodney said, "This - it's like you said, just, I don't know - "

"More?" John said, sitting down on the edge of the mattress across from Rodney. Rodney wheeled the desk chair a little closer with his feet, close enough that John could feel the heat from Rodney's legs, just inches from his own.

Rodney closed his eyes and nodded. "Exactly. I feel like I want to sleep forever and pretend this isn't happening, and at the same time, I just spent an hour staring out of my window at the _two moons_ outside. This place is -"

John inched closer to Rodney, his own bare legs below his boxers brushing against the impossibly soft flannel of Rodney's pants. "Yeah," John whispered. "I know."

Rodney's eyes were still closed, his hands on his knees and his fingers almost touching John's skin. John knew that this was stupid - he knew very well that none of this made sense, even one bit, but he wanted Rodney to touch him. He wanted to reach out and pull Rodney closer and say something, do something. Rodney's breath was deep and a bit ragged, and John closed his eyes too, so it was a shock when Rodney crossed that invisible line between them and ran his fingers over John's knees. John squeezed his eyes shut tighter. He knew he wouldn't be able to stop if he saw Rodney's hands on him, pale skin framed against the dark hair on his knees.

"Rodney, you shouldn't -" he said softly, but Rodney didn't pull away. John could feel the heat pouring off of Rodney as he leaned closer, right into John's space, his palms hot and firm against John's unsteady legs.

"Shut up," Rodney said, voice just above a whisper, but it was all soft edges, nothing hard at all. "I shouldn't have had to watch my wife die so early, I shouldn't have dropped out of school, I shouldn't be raising a daughter by myself, I shouldn't have not talked to my own goddamn sister for so long, I shouldn't be a high school physics teacher - my life is one long, ridiculous serious of shouldn'ts - why should I stop now?"

"I don't know," John said, honestly, and when he felt Rodney's hand curve, hot and firm, around the back of his neck, he leaned forward, opening his eyes, and let Rodney pull him in.

*****

It took Rodney and Jeannie about a day and a half to figure out that someone had rewired over a dozen crystals in all the malfunctioning DHDs, and done a good enough job that it was almost impossible to detect. John speculated that most of the worlds where the problems so far had occurred didn't have the tech expertise to do that, and Jeannie crossed her arms over her chest and said, "Well, we know some people who would do it for a price, right?" The way it was done allowed very specific gate addresses to be dialed and programmed in, while everything else was blocked. A kind of a brilliant strategy against the Wraith, but pretty miserable for anyone else trying to travel through the gates. After two days of only seeing Jeannie and Rodney if he stopped by the labs, Rodney's gaze lingering on John a bit too long every time, they emerged.

“Well,” Jeannie said, with Rodney beside her, looking completely freaked out, “I think we’re ready to go try this out.”

“Um,” Rodney said, shuffling his feet. “Yes, of course.”

An hour later, John, Teyla and Ronon met Jeannie and very nervous-looking Rodney, somewhat awkwardly outfitted for an off-world mission, in the gateroom. John watched as Ronon said something to Rodney, and Rodney rolled his eyes, Ronon grinning. Teyla helped Rodney adjust his tac vest and he saw Rodney’s tight smile when Teyla gripped his arm. When the wormhole opened, Ronon led the team through, and Rodney lifted his chin, almost defiantly and so very like Jeannie, before he followed.

They gated to MX3-166, and John, Teyla, and Ronon played the muscle and the hired guns while Rodney and Jeannie worked on the fix for the problem, and also discovered the fact that the gate could still dial the Genii home world. Jeannie and Rodney were under the console, working quickly, and Jeannie had let John know that they were just about a minute away from being done when Ronon froze and pulled himself up out of a slouch against a tree, drawing his gun and aiming it at the forest.

Fuck. So much for getting out clean.

“Pick up the pace, Jeannie,” John hissed as he gestured to Teyla, and they both trained their P-90s where Ronon was aiming.

“This isn’t as easy as it looks, you know,” Rodney muttered from below.

“Just a few more seconds,” Jeannie pleaded. “Stall.”

The first shot rang out from the other side of the trees, and, suddenly, before they could even figure out their position, about a dozen Genii soldiers broken out of the trees, about a thousand feet away and closing in fast.

“How about now?” John shouted at Jeannie and Rodney, and Jeannie just babbled, “one second, goddamn, just – “

The soldiers closed in, and John _hated_ to be this outnumbered, never turned out that well, especially without Jeannie to help too. They were trading fire; they had maybe a minute before this became a face-to-face confrontation with a three to one ratio.

John got a few shots off, watching one Genii go down, before he heard the gate dialing, then the lock, then Jeannie yelling, “Now! Come on!” and John turned his head to see Jeannie physically dragging a white-as-a sheet Rodney out from under the console and through the gate. John was backing up toward them, still firing, along with Teyla and Ronon.

“Go!” John shouted, and covered Teyla while she ran through. He turned and booked it, relying on sheer luck and Ronon’s cover to get there. When he literally fell into the gateroom, Ronon was right after him, gun still raised in one hand, and blood running down his left shoulder.

“Shit,” John said softly, moving closer to Ronon. “You okay?”

“Yeah, it’s clean,” Ronon said, his voice a bit strained as he holstered his gun and pressed his right hand against the wound as Keller jogged in to take him back to the infirmary.

A cursory glance around let John know that everyone else was okay – Teyla, as normal, looked like she’d been strolling instead of running for her life. Jeannie was panting, her hair askew but looking okay, trying to explain that now, she could do the fix in a few seconds after knowing exactly what they were dealing with, but John wasn’t listening. He was focused on Jeannie’s hand gripped Rodney’s shoulder hard, and – shit, Rodney did not look okay. He was just standing there, staring straight ahead, frozen and slack-jawed, before Jeannie, done explaining, led him away.

*****

It was so late that John was convinced that Rodney wasn’t going to show that night, and John was folding down the blankets on his bed when the door chimed.

“Hey,” Rodney said, standing on the other side of the door, dark around the eyes and bearing the brunt of a hard mission, the way John had seen his own eyes in the mirror countless times.

“Hey,” John said, and stood to the side to let Rodney walk in. Rodney looked a little confused, so John steered him to sit on the bed, and sat next to him. “You okay?” John asked, and knew it was maybe the stupidest thing he’d ever said the second it was out of his mouth.

Rodney snorted and slumped a little. “Sure, you know - I get shot at by gun-toting aliens in the halls of West High every day, so I’m used to it.” He closed his eyes, and gritted out, “Fuck.”

John didn’t know what to say, there wasn’t anything right to say, so he draped his arm across Rodney’s shoulders and tugged him a little closer, letting Rodney lean into his side.

“I shouldn’t have come,” Rodney said softly, urgently, pressed against John. “What if someone had been really hurt? What if I had -”

“We weren’t,” John said firmly.

“That was dumb luck, and you know it.” Rodney snapped, then reached up and rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes, pulling away a little. “God, I have a _kid_ at home, and I’m all she’s got – I shouldn’t have been so selfish, I knew there was a reason I – “

“You didn’t know what was going to happen, don’t beat yourself up about it. We’ll get you home to Carrie in one piece.” He tried to inch a little closer, to provide some reassurance, some comfort.

There was silence for a few minutes, and then Rodney said, almost a whisper, “Before we left on the mission today, I was thinking about how I could stay. Here. If there was a way to have Carrie here with me, or to consult part-time, or something, but now – I just can’t. At least until Carrie’s older and away at college or something. Sixteen years ago, if I’d been offered all this, I would have been here in a heartbeat. This is what I always thought I wanted. And to be with Jeannie, and you -”

Rodney just stopped, suddenly silent, and John took advantage of the lull to reach over to take Rodney’s face between his hands, holding him there and looking into his eyes, trying to say something without words. After a few moments, Rodney shuddered and closed his eyes, and John brought their mouths together, improbably easy and sweet.

*****

Rodney decided to stay a couple more days until the next scheduled dial out, spending most of his time in the labs with Jeannie. John liked to go down there and watch them bounce off of each other, squabbling like kids a lot of the time and then beaming at each other whenever they made a major breakthrough with something. He liked watching Rodney rediscover this, this part of himself that had been closed off for so long, and discover new things. He’d even seen Rodney learning some basic hand-to-hand with Ronon one afternoon in the gym, and he walked into the mess one evening at dinner to see Rodney holding Torren carefully but confidently, chatting with Teyla. And every night, John lay stretched out on top of the blankets, waiting for the door to chime. For Rodney to be outside.

During the day, out in the city, Rodney was brash and brilliant and quickly seemed like he'd always been there, side by side with Jeannie, even though it had only been days, and would only be a couple more. Inside John's room, Rodney was different - blurred at the edges and hesitant - and sometimes John would reach up and put his hand on Rodney's face, looking at the years of disappointment and the multitude of wounds sketched out in the lines on his forehead, around his mouth and eyes. He wanted to ask a million questions, but instead he sketched out his own words with his fingers on Rodney's skin.

The morning that Rodney was scheduled to gate out, breakfast was a little more subdued than usual. John was sitting on Rodney's left and Jeannie on his right, across from Ronon and Teyla. It felt in many ways like Rodney had become somewhat of a satellite member on their team in a short week. Ronon spent most of the last week trying to get a rise out of Rodney (in between beating him up), which was surprisingly easy for someone who had a teenager and should have a great bullshit detector by now, and Teyla and Rodney were talking about the joys of having an infant who refused to sleep the night. Jeannie carried herself like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders that John hadn't even realized she was carrying. She looked more relaxed and happier and kept talking about seeing Rodney and Carrie again.

John didn't say much, just moved his food around so it looked like he was eating, keeping his thigh pressed tight against Rodney's under the table. Rodney stayed close too. After breakfast, Jeannie headed off to the labs and Rodney begged off, saying he had to pack, following John into the transporter and down the hall, into John's quarters.

"I'm glad you came," John said, trying to put more into those simple words than they carried alone, feeling at a loss and awkward, his hands behind his back in a relaxed parody of parade rest. "And thanks again."

Rolling his eyes, Rodney pulled John into a hug that made John feel like he was going to suffocate, just a little. "Stop acting like such an idiot," he scoffed quietly, pushing one hand up into the back of John's hair and talking softly into John's ear. "Write, okay? And come with Jeannie when she gets a chance to next, or by yourself. I think that Carrie enjoyed beating you at chess.” Rodney chuckled. “I know I did."

"Yeah," John breathed, the knot deep in his chest loosening just a little, letting himself take in the warm, solid feel of Rodney wrapped around him, the smell of his soap and coffee on the warm skin of his neck. "I will."

Rodney squeezed him tight and then pulled back, smiling a little dangerously, his eyes shining, and let his hands drift down to start working on the small buttons on the front of John's black shirt. John closed his eyes.

*****

John stood next to Jeannie in front of the gate, long after Ronon and Teyla had left: Teyla to pick Torren up from Sergeant Thomas, and Ronon to have lunch with Keller. They stayed as Rodney walked through, after a hug for everyone one of them; John’s own left him aching as Rodney pulled away slowly from him, smiling and waving as he disappeared through the watery blue. They stayed as the SGC reported that Rodney had arrived safely, and after the connection shut down.

"Thanks," Jeannie finally said, softly. She was holding a picture of Carrie firmly in her left hand, who was smiling back at them with her pale skin, red hair, and Jeannie and Rodney's blue eyes.

"Of course," he said, reaching out to grip her shoulder. Neither of them moved for a while, and no one thought to ask them to.


End file.
